


The Marriage Act

by Wait_Icanexplain



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A Lot of Awkwardness, Andromeda & Narcissa reconnect, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Arranged Marriage, Awkward Flirting, Bellatrix is not a good mother, Death Eaters, Discrimination, Draco is a good cousin, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Forced Marriage, Fred Weasley Lives, Gen, Good Narcissa Black Malfoy, Hogwarts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kinda, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Character Death, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, little teddy lupin, of course she has issues, she is the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:51:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14280372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wait_Icanexplain/pseuds/Wait_Icanexplain
Summary: After the Second Wizarding War the last name Lestrange became a curse and unlike the faded Dark Mark on her arm, no amount of long sleeves could hide it.When the Marriage Act is passed by the Ministry Desdemona must face what her mother did.It only gets worse when she receives the results from her compatibility test and see's the name of her match.Fred Weasley94% Compatibility.





	1. Desdemona Narcissa Malfoy

**Author's Note:**

> The Birth and Early Childhood of Desdemona Narcissa Lestrange
> 
> Other Chapters will be longer

 

Desdemona Narcissa Lestrange is born on a Tuesday, December 13th to exact, in 1977.

She is born at home in the old Lestrange Family Manor as a winter storm rages on outside. Desdemona doesn't cry or scream when she enters the world. No, she only coos at the mediwitch who delivered her. Brown eyes wide and so dark that they also look as black as the thick curls already on her small head. Desdemona isn't welcomed warmly or with great joy, rather just placed into the arms of an indifferent mother. It was no secret that Bellatrix Lestrange was not fond of children. Even now as she held her tiny daughter in her arms the woman could stare blankly at the babe. Her father was no better. Rodolphus Lestrange wasn't even in attendance at the the birth of his first born child.

"What will you name her?"

The mediwitch asks waiting to fill out the birth certificate. If it were not for Narcissa's insistence a month prior to pick out names for the child than Bellatrix would be at a loss. Narcissa had also insisted in staying with the Black Family tradition of naming children after stars, constellations or other celestial objects. It had taken three hours to settle on names, Desdemona for a girl or Cygnus for a boy.

"Desdemona Lestrange"

Bellatrix responded blandly as she shifted to breast feed her newborn daughter. Originally she didn't plan to but Narcissa had persuaded her otherwise.

"A middle name?"

Bellatrix narrowed her eyes. She hadn't thought of a middle name. Maybe one of the other names that Narcissa had suggested? Bellatrix couldn't quite remember any of the other names, nor did she like any of them. A few more moments passed by before Bellatrix's eye caught the sight of the little green baby hat that Narcissa had knitted for the babe. Bellatrix finally decided.

"Narcissa."

The mediwitch smiled as she filled out the certificate before packing up her things.

"Congratulations again Mrs Lestrange on becoming a Mother. Have a lovely night." 

* * *

 

Desdemona is three when her mother, father and uncle are sent to Azkaban for the torture of Alice and Frank Longbottom. She doesn't quite understand why her parent's are gone, other people say they did something bad but her uncle Lucius says otherwise. She doesn't cry much when her aunt Narcissa explains that her parents are going away for a long time. She cries because she has to leave the Lestrange Manor to live with her aunt and uncle but the toddler doesn't seem too saddened by her parents absence.

It should be noted that Desdemona was a quiet child, smarter then most her age. She wasn't a fussy child either, unlike her baby cousin. She was content to allow Narcissa to dress her up and do her hair up as she wished with the promise of a new book of course. Desdemona was also rather fond of her baby cousin Draco. It was common place for Lucius or Narcissa to find her in the nursery with a child's book to read to her younger cousin. When Draco begins to speak he can't pronounce her name quite yet, instead shortening her name to _'Dessy'_.

Desdemona spends majority of her life inside the bleak walls of Malfoy manor, rarely interacting with children her own age outside the pureblood play-dates that Narcissa brings her and Draco to. 

Desdemona is five when she learns just what her parents did to get locked away in Azkaban. Two wizards talking just loud enough that she can overhear them as her and Narcissa browse the aisles of Twilfitt and Tattings. 

"Her mother is Bellatrix Lestrange. She is in Azkaban for torturing the Longbottoms'. Poor thing looks just like her."

By the time she is seven Desdemona starts to disregard what her uncle and aunt say about blood purity and Lord Voldemort. She's read enough and heard enough from others to understand the wrongness of her families beliefs and the horribleness of her parents crimes. Desdemona doesn't say anything though, she smart enough to know not to challenge her uncle or aunt. She only nods. 

At Eleven as she stares into the mirror Desdemona can't deny what other people say any longer. 

 

She looks exactly like her mother and it is a curse just like the last name Lestrange.

 


	2. Character Profile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Profile and general information about Desdemona

 

Name: Desdemona Narcissa Lestrange

Born: December 13th, 1977

Species: Witch

Status: Pure-blood

______

Gender: Female

Hair Colour: Black

Eye Colour: Dark Brown

Height: 5'9''

Weight: 143 lbs

______

Wand: Larch wood with a phoenix feather core, 14 ½" and supple flexibility

Patronus: Unknown

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Boggart: Bellatrix Lestrange _(due to Desdemona's fear of becoming like her mother.)_

______

Family:  Bellatrix Lestrange (mother) ✝️

             Rodulphus Lestrange (father)

             Rabastan Lestrange (paternal uncle)

             Andromeda Tonks ( maternal aunt)

             Nymphadora Tonks ( first cousin) ✝️

             Edward Lupin (first cousin once-removed) 

             Narcissa Malfoy (maternal aunt)

             Draco Malfoy (first cousin)

             Fred Weasley (fiancee/ husband)

______

Physical identifiers/ scars:

Dark Mark (Faded) located inner left forearm

Multiple self-inflicted scars located inner left forearm

Scaring to the right leg located around the lower thigh, knee and upper calf.

   Walks with visible limp.

Scar on Neck.

______

Summary:

 

Desdemona is the daughter and sole child of Death Eaters Bellatrix and Rodulphus Lestrange. After their imprisonment for the torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom just before her fourth birthday, Desdemona was raised by her Aunt and Uncle- Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy.  Desdemona was never quite fond of her uncle and didn't believe in his ideals of blood purity, this ended up causing a rift between her and her cousin Draco that wouldn't be mended till during the Second Wizarding War.

Desdemona is quiet and shy in nature when around large groups of people but will become talkative and somewhat childish when with close friends and family. Despite her appearance being a stark copy of her mother, all who get to know Desdemona note that in demeanor and personality she couldn't be a further opposite of her mother.

Following the Second Wizarding War Desdemona became a recluse of sorts. She only spoke to her aunts and cousins, unless for business, and rarely left the Lestrange Manor. She developed several self-destructive tendencies and suffers from a mild form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the War and time with her mother.

______

 

 

 

 

 


	3. The Letter

Desdemona Lestrange had a peculiar relationship with time. She had never been particularly good at keeping track of it and the war had done little to help, but she, strangely enough, was very good with dates. She knew every birthday of her friends and close acquaintances, of which there were not many, and she knew every anniversary and holiday. She also remembered the date of every death and bad event that happened during the war. Yes, though she wasn’t good at keeping track of time Desdemona Lestrange was very good at dates. 

 

August 30th of 2002 would become another one of her dates. No one was born, no one had died, but on that Friday morning, both her fate and the fate of many other witches and wizards in Britain was sealed with just a simple letter. She had only read the first page of the letter before sinking to the floor of her kitchen.

  
  


_ Dear Desdemona Lestrange, _

 

_ As of today, August 30th, 2002, the Ministry of Magic officially puts into the law Marriage Act effective immediately. Under this law, all unmarried witches and wizards between the ages of twenty and forty who are citizens of wizarding Britain will be required to marry within six months of this announcement.. Two children of magic blood must be produced with one being born or conceived during the first year of marriage. Exceptions to the law can be granted (Please see the following page) in cases of special circumstance. _

_ The Ministry of Magic understands that many will not be pleased with this announcement, but it is with a heavy heart following months of deliberation that we put forth this law.  _

 

_ The Ministry understands that not all of its citizens have a significant other to marry or will be able to find a suitable spouse themselves within the allotted time, to deal with this the Ministry also announces the formation of the Department of Marriage which will oversee all cases in relation to the Marriage Act and provide a matchmaking service to aid witches and wizards in finding a most suitable spouse, known single witches and wizards will find they have received a match to another single witch or wizard with this letter. To accept or deny the match please see the instructions also enclosed with the letter. _

 

_ Sincerely, _

_ Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic. _

  
  


Desdemona didn’t open the letter further, she didn’t look at her match, and she didn’t bother with reading the page that further explained the law. Instead, she sank to the ground where she now sat on the tiled floor of her kitchen some hours later. She wasn’t completely sure how much time had passed, but her parts of her body had gone numb and her bottom ached. 

Her mind had since gone down a hole trying to process the sudden information. Logically Desdemona knew that being the daughter of two of the most notorious wasn’t cause for exemption, but who would marry the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange? No matter who she got matched with they surely would deny the match as soon as they saw her name. 

So deep in her thoughts, Desdemona didn’t hear the sound of someone arriving until they sat down beside her and spoke.

 

“I see you’ve read the letter, huh?”

 

Desdemona didn’t bother answering her cousin, she didn’t have to, for Draco Malfoy could clearly see letter lying abandoned on the floor. Desdemona had suspected that he would show up eventually, most likely at the behest of his mother and his aunt. After all, the woman already had him coming by every few days to check on her and surely this recent announcement would prompt a check-in. 

 

“Did you look at your match?” 

 

Desdemona shook her head. She hadn’t yet worked up the strength to even take a glance at the match. The thought of even looking at the match made her stomach roll and caused a nervous lump to settle in her throat. Part of her wanted to look, wanted to see who she was matched with but the nagging voice in her head stopped her. No matter how compatible the ministry thought she was with this person, it would never work, they would never marry her, never love her. She looked too much like her mother, it didn’t matter how short she cut her hair, and even if they could get past that there were the scars. 

 

_ The Scars. _

  
  


The thought of them made her arm ache. There were so many. Jagged, raised lines on her skin that crisscrossed along her inner forearm. A desperate and brutal attempt to get rid of the horrid mark on her arm, but the scars did little but distort it into a mess of faded black ink and carved skin. Her arm wasn’t the only scarred place. Scars of varying sizes littered her body. Some had faded, but the others hadn’t, the worst of them sat on her neck. A gift of her mother. Her hand had come up to trace over the raised skin. The scar was clean and smooth, but it stood out against her neck. Desdemona had long since taken to wearing high collared sweaters and shirts to cover it. 

 

“They’ll understand. People know we didn’t want to, that you didn’t want to…”

 

“They didn’t care.”

 

Draco knew she was right. Even after the trial, after everything had come out and people knew she had no choice they didn’t care. She was a  _ Lestrange,  _ she was her mother’s daughter and for many, that was reason enough to hate her. 

 

“Will you propose to Astoria?”

 

Desdemona liked Astoria. She was a kind girl, four years her junior, and in the year she’s known Astoria the girl never once pushed her to reveal more than she wanted to and for that she was grateful.  Draco had started on about Astoria and Desdemona was content to listen as her younger cousin spoke. Things remained like that for a long while, Draco content to talk and Desdemona content to listen, but eventually, things ended when her fair-haired cousin turned back to her.

 

“Mother wants to know what you plan on doing with the manor…”

 

_ Lestrange Manor.  _ The home of her father, uncle and every other Lestrange before her. She never liked the manor, especially after the war. It was too big, too dark and too secluded for her liking. The entire place could burn to the ground for all she cared. It had never been much of a home to her.

 

Desdemona was not a sentimental person, but after the war, when she learned that she had inherited her mother’s childhood home a sense of relief overcame her. Though she did have a handful of fond memories of the place, visiting her grandparents with her cousin and aunt, it was the sheer fact that 61 Myddelton Square was  _ not _ Lestrange Manor.

 

61 Myddelton Square was a townhouse, not unlike 12 Grimmauld Place, that was located in a Muggle neighborhood and remained hidden by several spells and charms. The place was large and had more rooms than she knew what to do with but it lacked the suffocating emptiness of the manor. In the four years since Desdemona had taken up residence in the old home, she had taken to renovating the place, the family portraits and mounted house-elf heads the first to go, but it was slow going. She had taken to doing it the muggle way, which left more than a few rooms in varying states of partial completion while others were turned into temporary storage rooms. 

 

“I had thought about leaving it to you, but now...I don’t know what I’ll do with it.”

 

They talked a bit more before Draco eventually decided to leave. Desdemona in turn finally picked herself up from the kitchen floor and headed down into the basement that functioned as a potions room for her. She had taken to brewing potions for St. Mungo’s. The whole affair was private, and she only brewed them specialty potions. Not many places in the wizarding world were willing to hire the daughter of two prolific death eaters but her skill with potions seemed to negate her familial relationships, though St. Mungo’s preferred that the whole affair was kept under the table so to speak.

 

In the end, Desdemona retreated to her potions room and left the letter lying on the floor of her kitchen. It wouldn’t be until two days later that she’d eventually work up the courage to open the letter further and view her match.

 

When she did- her heart sank into her chest.

**Fred Weasley.**

 

* * *

  
  


**Desdemona Lestrange** .

 

Fred Weasley reread the letter twice, looking for some mistake or discrepancy, but he found none. He was matched with Desdemona Lestrange, the daughter of the very woman his own mother had killed. His feelings were mixed. He knew very little about Desdemona. He knew of her parents, her trial after the war and that she had been in his year at Hogwarts, though she had been in Ravenclaw, and they had no common friends between them.

 

He faintly remembered her from their shared school years together, she had been in some of his classes, but they had never talked, and she had never made much of an impression on him.  From what Fred could recall it often seemed that Desdemona tried her best to hide in the shadows of her only friends and dorm mates. She was quiet and shy and if it weren’t for her being a mirror image of her mother, she probably would have succeeded in going unnoticed. 

 

The ministry match letter came with a bit of information on his match and three small photos, two of which looked like they had been taken by a Daily Prophet reporter. The first photo of her was the one he recognized the most. The photo was of Desdemona and the three other girls Fred vaguely remembered as her roommates and by the background, he could guess it was taken during the first task of the Triwizard tournament. Desdemona sat second in line of the photo, squished between who he recognized as Vivian Boyd and Florentina Ibbot with Hester Dunning's sitting last in line. Her smile in the photo was shy and awkward.

 

The other two photos bothered him though. The second photo was taken, by the looks of it, not long after her trial. It was clearly taken at a funeral by the dark, heavy robes all the witches and wizards in the photo wore. It dawned on Fred at that moment whose funeral it was and instantly an uncomfortable lump settled in his throat. Vivian Boyd had died during the battle. He knew this because Alicia had been friends with her. As she was the main focus of the photo it was easy to tell Desdemona from the others in the photo. She stood at the back of the crowd, away from even her friends, and looked like a ghost of the girl from the first photo. She looked gaunt and sickly, her frame swallowed by her heavy robes, and her once long hair looked like someone had taken a dull knife to it. 

 

The last photo was more recent. Taken only a few months ago if the date on the photo was right. Fred wasn’t sure the context of the photo as it was a close up of her face with her head turning to look at the photographer. She didn’t look as gaunt or sickly as she had in the second photo but neither did she look like she had in the first.  She was beautiful, Fred couldn’t deny that, but it was hard not to see the shocking similarities she had with her mother though Desdemona seemed to lack the madness and cruelty that had marred her mother’s features. 

Again he felt conflicted. Part of him thought of outright denying the match, founded solely on the reasoning of who her parents are and what they are, but another part of him felt a bit of shame at his initial thought. Desdemona wasn’t her mother or her father, and she  _ had _ been cleared of all charged. Their compatibility score also nagged at him. 94%. Fred didn’t know what methods the ministry used to determine the matches but clearly whatever method they used found him and Desdemona highly compatible.

 

Stuck so deep in thought Fred didn’t realize his brother was leaning over his shoulder until he let out a low whistle and fell down into the chair beside him. 

 

“Desdemona Lestrange. Who knew that the daughter of that mad woman was meant to be your one true love?” 

 

Fred knew his brother was teasing but it still irked him slightly. 

 

“Apparently the ministry. We are highly compatible according to them.”

 

There was a small silence as George reached over the table and plucked up the photos of Desdemona. His brother studied the photos for a moment, his face twisting up a bit when he eyed the photo of her at Vivian Boyd’s funeral. 

 

“She was always rather quiet back in school, you’d barely notice her. Her trial was a nasty one from what I remember. What are you going to do?”

 

Fred didn’t remember her trial. It had been one of the first, and he was still in St.Mungo’s recovering when it took place. He knew she was cleared but he never cared to look any further into the matter. 

 

“‘M not sure. Haven’t seen her in four years and barely knew her back then. Not to mention everything with mum-”

 

“We both know mum won’t hold anything against her. It’s hardly her fault her mother was a bloody lunatic.”

 

Fred found himself agreeing. Back in school, she had only ever been the daughter of Bellatrix Lestrange to him and most others. He briefly wondered what it was like for her to be constantly compared to her mother, to be judged for the actions of her parents. 

Looking back down at the ministry letter he glanced at the address they provided for her. 

 

_ 61 Myddelton Square.  _

 

Fred decided he’d send her a letter. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you all want I'm willing to put in a character profile with specific details on Desdemona


End file.
